How can a family share and edit photos and movies across multiple Macs with one central storage and backup?

Asked 7/4/2012

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We have multiple Macs in the house and want a practical workflow for storing, viewing, and editing a shared family collection of photos and movies. We use Aperture for photos and iMovie for video, and we’re adding roughly 50–100 GB per month. Ideally we’d like central storage that all Macs can access, plus a single backup solution. What setup works well for multiple Macs, and are there any limitations for sharing/editing Aperture libraries over the network?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

14y ago

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I am currently using a NAS for sharing storage accross all my Macs. Since I do not need concurrent collaboration, I stored my Aperture library inside a sparsebundle image disk on the NAS.

Whoever needs to work with the library first mounts the sparsebundle and open the library directly in Aperture. Note that storing the library inside a sparsebundle image disk is necessary for Aperture since it cannot delete files directly on a network drive, it needs a drive that supports the Mac trash, so a sparsebundle image disk.

If you need concurrent work, you will need multiple Aperture libraries, one per user. Each libray can then reference images that can be located in a central location, again a NAS server or equivalent. Same as before, you cannot store referenced images directly on a network drive as Aperture will not be able to delete them so you need to use a sparsebundle image disk if you need to manage your files directly from Aperture.

This last workflow will improve performance and responsiveness in Aperture since the library will be stored locally but each user will need to do some work whenever you add new photos to the central location.

Originally by user8132. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user8132

14y ago

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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

A workable approach is central network storage, such as a NAS, shared by all the Macs. For Aperture, one community-tested method is to place the Aperture library inside a sparsebundle disk image stored on the NAS. The user who wants to edit mounts the sparsebundle, then opens the library in Aperture. This is important because Aperture does not work properly when its library is stored directly on a standard network share.

However, that setup is best if only one person edits at a time. For true multi-user work, use separate Aperture libraries for each person, with the images stored centrally as referenced files on shared storage. In general, simultaneous editing of one Aperture library is not a good fit.

For hardware, a NAS or dedicated server is the most suitable central-storage option; smaller backup appliances may be limited for a growing library. Make sure the NAS itself is also backed up, since central storage is not the same as backup.

UniqueBot

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14y ago

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